Breen placed a sheet of carbon paper between two sheets and wound them into his typewriter. He typed “Detective Sergeant C. Breen 10/14/68,” then stared at the blank page for a minute. He had read the shaky writing that filled six pages of his notebook several times and still failed to make sense of it.
Marilyn’s phone rang. Distracted, Breen watched her answer it, saw the softness of her face disappear as she listened. “Right,” she said. She picked up a notebook and started writing out details in shorthand. “OK,” she said, pencil still in hand, “got it,” and put the phone down. It rattled on the cradle. She looked up at Breen.
“One just come in,” she said. She stood and walked straight to Bailey’s office.
“Sir?” She knocked on the glass of his door.
Bailey stood, square-shouldered, in the middle of the office. He was cleaning his glasses with his handkerchief again, listening with the rest of them as Marilyn read from her notes.
“A young naked woman,” Marilyn said. “Found under debris. St. John’s Wood. Discovered by a woman. Approximately eleven a.m. Local resident called it in. Body appears recent.”
It was 11:20 now, according to the Bakelite clock that hung above the door.
“Aye, aye,” said Carmichael. “Young naked woman. Best not send Jones. He’s never seen one of them.”
“’K off.”
“Some things we don’t joke about in this office, Carmichael.”
“No, sir.” Carmichael smirked, looking downwards. Tobacco suede Chelsea boots, finger loop at the ankles.
“May we continue?”
“Go ahead,” said Carmichael.
No one liked Bailey, but people hadn’t used to be so obvious about their feelings.
Bailey cleared his throat and turned to Marilyn again. “Any sign of a weapon?”
“Didn’t say, sir.”
Bailey gazed around the room, looking from face to face. Then he made up his mind. “Breen, by rights I think this one’s yours.”
“Me, sir? You already put me on the arson one, sir.”
Bailey sniffed. “I’m aware of that. However, as you might have noticed we’re a little short-staffed today. Nothing wrong with you taking on another case, is there, Sergeant?”
“No, sir.”
“Specially as you’re the reason we’re short,” muttered Jones.
“I’m sure you’re keen to show you’re up to it, aren’t you, Paddy?” said the inspector.
“Yes, sir,” he said.
Bailey pursed his lips for a second as if deep in thought. Eventually he said, “Jones? You’ll assist on the murder squad.”
“Assist Breen, sir?”
“Yes. Assist.”
Jones glowered at Bailey. “Yes, sir. If you say so.”
“Good.” And turned back to his office and his African violets and closed the door behind him.
They stood there for a second, saying nothing, until Marilyn said to Jones, “You know what he’s trying to do, don’t you? Stop you acting like a total spacker about what happened to Prosser.”
“Thanks for making that perfectly clear, Marilyn,” said Jones. “Only it ain’t going to work.”
“I know,” said Marilyn. “You’re still going to be a spacker either way.”
Breen began looking through the drawers of his desk for a fresh notebook. There was a prescription for some painkillers for his father and a pile of raffle tickets from the D Division Christmas Ball 1967, but no notebook.
Jones, nylon blazer and brown slacks, dark hair Brylcreemed down below his collar, came up and stood close to him and said quietly, “I said I’d go and do an errand for Prosser. On account of him being in hospital. ’Cause he got stabbed. I’ll be along this afternoon, if you can handle it until then, that is.”
“Fine by me,” said Breen. “Anyone got a spare notebook?”
Three
Two local constables from the St. John’s Wood station stood at the entrance to the alleyway into the back of the flats. They were still waiting for the tarp to cover the victim with.
“A kid found her,” volunteered one of the constables. “The body was covered up by a mattress. All sorts of people must have walked past her from the back of Cora Mansions this morning, but he spotted her on account of his height. Being short, you see?”
At the beginning of an investigation, local constables were especially keen.
“So she could have been there a while, I reckon.”
“Thanks.”
The body was out of sight beyond the line of sheds. Breen noticed a man setting up a camera on a tripod.
“Anybody know who she is?”
“No, sir. Unidentified so far.”
“Anybody gone round the houses yet?”
The policeman, a pale-looking youngster, raised an eyebrow. “We was waiting for you, sir.”
Breen stepped back. On the fire escape at the back of Cora Mansions, a woman in a pale housecoat stood leaning over the metal banister looking down at the group of men working around the body. “You going to take a look, sir?”
A ginger cat sat on the roof of one of the sheds, glaring at the activity. The police camera’s flash went off.
The cameraman was lowering his tripod to alter the angle of his shot. The police doctor looked up from his kitbag. “Bugger me,” he said. “Paddy Breen. Heard you were last seen running away from the scene of the crime. What are you doing here?”
“Good to see you too, Dr. Wellington,” said Breen.
“If I die,” said Wellington, “please don’t let me be found with my naked behind sticking up to the sky. What a way to go.” Early forties. Balding. Hair swept over the top. Rakish sideburns and a cravat.
They had moved the mattress off the body and stood it against the brick wall next to her. The woman-not much more than a girl really-lay awkwardly, head jammed down on the earth, legs above her, tangled in a rusted bicycle frame. Absurd in her nakedness. Drizzle trickled unevenly from her upturned bottom down her pale, dead back. A small drip of blood had dried at the upturned corner of her mouth. Her pale blue eyes were wide and glassy.
Breen looked away. “Excuse me,” he said.
He managed to walk four paces before he was sick into a patch of straggly nettles a little farther down the alleyway. There had not been much in his stomach besides coffee. When he pulled a handkerchief from his pocket to wipe his mouth, he felt his hand shaking.
“You all right, sir?” said a constable.
Breen looked away. His nostrils, throat and mouth stung. His stomach churned. “Yes, I’m fine.”
“Christ,” said Wellington.
“I think it’s just a bug…”
He bent over and vomited again. He spat a long dribble of saliva onto the grass next to his small, pink pile of sick.
“I think that’s what the college boys call contaminating the site, Breen,” called Wellington, rummaging in his equipment bag and eventually pulling out first a thermometer and then a small jar of Vaseline.
“Do you want a cough drop, sir?” said the local copper.
Still leaning over the patch of weeds he answered, “No, I’ll be fine,” spitting onto the grass again to try to clear the stinging taste from his mouth.
He straightened himself up, stomach aching from the convulsions. “Was she killed here, or dumped?” he asked Wellington. His voice was quiet, not much more than a whisper.
“Dumped,” said the doctor.
“Yes?”
“Well, I don’t think she bloody walked here looking like that. Looks like she was lying on her side for an hour or so after she was killed. Come here. Only don’t go chucking up on the evidence, Breen.”
Breen took a deep breath, stood up straight and approached the corpse again. “Look here,” said Wellington, leaning over the woman. “Blood pooling in the tissue of her left-hand side.” He pointed to a blueness in the skin on her pale thigh. “A prettier corpse than the last pile of bones you brought me,” he said.
Still leaning, he reached out and, holding it between finger and thumb, inserted the thermometer into the dead girl’s anus. “Convenient, at least,” said Wellington, twisting the glass rod a few times to push it in farther. “This won’t hurt a bit,” he muttered.